Given recent events and the violence in the game that the FA refuses to confront, I sent a list of questions to the FA. It was no surprise to me that the FA ignored all the hard questions and claimed that "The FA generally has no power to take retrospective action, due to FIFA directives. ". I found it strange that so many other countries (Belgium/Spain etc) were able to act on dangerous tackling retrospectively, even for incidents seen and punished by the match referee, while the FA was allegedly prevented from doing so by FIFA.
The FA were no help, so I turned to the Football ombudsman who was far more useful, he took the time to discuss things with the FA and he attempted to explain their position; he admitted that there was nothing explicit from FIFA that prevented the FA from acting: " it has been explained that there are not so much FIFA directives as FIFA interventions". In fact he said that it came down to page 332 in the FA's very own handbook:
"RULE E3 OF THE ASSOCIATION
A charge of Misconduct (as defined in and) pursuant to Rule E3 of the Rules of The
Association may be brought against a Player in relation to an incident, notwithstanding
that the same incident has been dealt with pursuant to this Memorandum. For example,
against a player who has been dismissed from the Field of Play for an incident which The
Association is satisfied was sufficiently serious to warrant an additional sanction, having
particular (but not exclusive) regard to the following:
(a) Any applicable Law(s) of the Game or Rules and Regulations or FIFA instructions
and/or guidelines;
(b) The nature of the incident, and in particular any intent, recklessness, negligence
or other state of mind of the Player;
(c) Where applicable, the level of force used;
(d) Any injury to any Participant caused by the incident;
(e) Any other impact on the game in which the incident occurred;
(f) The prevalence of the type of incident in question in football generally;
(g) The wider interests of football in applying consistent sanctions."
A charge of Misconduct (as defined in and) pursuant to Rule E3 of the Rules of The
Association may be brought against a Player in relation to an incident, notwithstanding
that the same incident has been dealt with pursuant to this Memorandum. For example,
against a player who has been dismissed from the Field of Play for an incident which The
Association is satisfied was sufficiently serious to warrant an additional sanction, having
particular (but not exclusive) regard to the following:
(a) Any applicable Law(s) of the Game or Rules and Regulations or FIFA instructions
and/or guidelines;
(b) The nature of the incident, and in particular any intent, recklessness, negligence
or other state of mind of the Player;
(c) Where applicable, the level of force used;
(d) Any injury to any Participant caused by the incident;
(e) Any other impact on the game in which the incident occurred;
(f) The prevalence of the type of incident in question in football generally;
(g) The wider interests of football in applying consistent sanctions."
I couldn't help chuckling when I read this for the first time, it is quite clear from reading the above concerning rule E3 that the FA could easily act on this issue of dangerous tackling if they so wished. Their own guidance seems to encourage action on dangerous tackling.
Take as an example De Jong breaking Ben Arfa's leg. This was a tackle that broke the rules of the game (serious foul play- (a) on the FA's list), it was reckless and negligent (b), it used an excessive level of force (c) and it caused a serious injury (d), there are also the wider issues which relate to this kind of reckless tackle (f)(g). It ticks almost all of the FA's own boxes.
The FA has been caught with its pants down around its ankles on this issue. Other countries have acted on dangerous tackling (eg Witsel in Belgium and Ujfalusi in Spain) and FIFA has had no problem at all with this. Some rather high powered officals in FIFA are now speaking out on the very same issue. The FA have been so limp and ineffective in confronting dangerous tackling that clubs are being forced into letters of protest, the situation is that bad. It is now clear to me that the FA's hands are not tied, they could act but they simply chose not to for some strange reason only known to themselves.
